The Courage Consort

Rating:
Summary: (3.5) Human nature, fear and fantasy
Review:

Faber's latest work, the three novellas of The Courage Consort, is a far cry from his well-known The Crimson Petal and the White. From the minutiae of Victoriana to the sophisticated subtleties of personal relationships, Faber illustrates yet another aspect of his considerable talent. Each novella is a unique experience with a varied emotional landscape. Surprises await.

The title story, The Courage Consort, is arguably a metaphor for the process of birth, as an a cappella consort isolates in the wilderness to rehearse the difficult composition of a postmodernist. Although the effort is met with intransigence and unexpected complications, the intense mix of characters creates a rich backdrop for the inevitable creative conflicts. Yet all are bound in service to the whole and find strength in their shared talents.

"The Hundred Ninety-Nine Steps" exhibits a lonelier aspect, as well as a brooding air of suspense. Sian, an archeologist, is confronted by the vast territory of loss, albeit with the potential for hope; she literally stumbles through a present that has yet to address a tragic past, haunted by nightmares that hint of a terrible reality. Here again, Faber avoids the obvious, leading skillfully through the scars of war, an archeological dig, possible violence, an old mystery and a surprising denouement.

The shortest of the three pieces, "The Fahrenheit Twins", also touches upon archeology, but with a twist, as two children, Tainto'lilith and Marko'cain, confront a different reality after the death of their mother. A New Age Hansel and Gretel, the children's burial voyage is transformative, the shedding of childhood illusions and the consequent discovery of an illuminated future.

All in all, this carefully crafted trilogy proves Faber's skill as a writer, a distinctive talent with a singular voice. Luan Gaines/2004.


Rating:
Summary: Strange Arresting Realities
Review: In this collection of three wildly divergent novellas Faber creates varied and vividly imagined worlds where the central/core theme is one of survival and renewal. Each masterfully written segment is amazing in its own way - multi-layered, absorbing, rich with an air of menace (unsettling), and a recurring habit of smashing all notions of predictability. The surprises blindsided me every time. My favorite novella was 'The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps' about a strange isolated woman on an archaeological dig. However, all three stories left a strong impression. It must have been nice for Mr. Faber to work on some shorter pieces after his mammoth novel 'The Crimson Petal and the White'.


Rating:
Summary: Three insightful, dazzling novellas
Review: Michel Faber's 2002 novel THE CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE was a sprawling, splendid novel, large in scale and hefty in size. His new offering, THE COURAGE CONSORT, contains three novellas no less dazzling, despite their shorter length and smaller scope.

In the title novella, the Courage Consort is "the seventh-most-renowned serious vocal ensemble in the world." Secluded in a Belgian chateau to rehearse a fiendishly difficult piece by a contemporary composer, the five singers soon reveal that their relationships are as dissonant as the music they perform. When tragedy strikes, the members of the Courage Consort, particularly Catherine Courage, must reevaluate their commitments to their music and to each other.

The second novella, entitled "The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps," is set in the medieval English city of Whitby. Siân is a young archaeologist who --- literally and figuratively --- carries remnants of war-torn Bosnia with her, and who is haunted each night by dreams "of being first seduced, then murdered." She soon meets an alluring stranger named Magnus who, despite his ancient name, ridicules the history that Siân reveres. The two of them uncover a two-hundred-year-old "murder" mystery with a surprising twist.

In the final novella "The Fahrenheit Twins" is a boy named Marko'cain and a girl named Tainto'lilith. Raised in a frigid climate by their anthropologist parents studying a polar tribe, the two are growing up in an atmosphere of "benign neglect." Left primarily to their own devices, and without any external cultural or social influences, the two develop their own set of primitive rituals and superstitions. When their mother dies, the two children set off to "wait for a signal from the universe as to the best thing to do with the body." In this modern-day Hansel and Gretel tale, the siblings' quest leads them to reevaluate their assumptions about their parents' relationships, the nature of their work, and the structure of their family.

In each of these brief novellas, Faber constructs a wholly developed world, whether it be a bleak polar outpost or a claustrophobic Belgian forest. These settings help envelop the reader in the story and create an environment as rich and lush as any full-length novel. With THE COURAGE CONSORT, Faber proves himself a master of creating imaginative, engrossing fiction, whether slight or sprawling.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl



Rating:
Summary: 3 stories--very good, so-so, and not-so-good
Review: One expects unevenness from any collection of stories/novellas, but when there are only three, the burden falls even harder on the author and here Faber doesn't quite carry it off; one or two weaker stories out of a collection of a half-dozen or more isn't so bad, but one or two out of three (as in the case of The Courage Consort) makes the work as a whole a disappointment.
The title story, the first in the collection, is about the eponymous singing group who has come together in a Belgian chateau to practice a difficult modern piece they are to perform at an upcoming festival. The focus is on Catherine Courage, the group's soprano, wife to the group's leader and a woman attempting to recover from the midst of a depression which has her suicidal and medicated, not to mention estranged from her husband and life in general. This is the first time the group has stayed together and the ensuing tensions and revelations give Faber opportunity to explore in all sorts of nice small ways the interactions among the group, some comic, some much more poignant. The story seemed just a bit too long to me, the supernatural element a bit superfluous, but in the end I thought it succeeded, although I wouldn't call it a great story.
The middle novella is the weakest of the three and painfully so in places. Here the main character is a woman named Sian who has joined an archaeological dig at an Abbey in England. Lonely, self-conscious about her leg and an unexplained lump she has found recently, and bothered by repetitive dreams of being strangled, she is sparked to life somewhat by Mack, a "quite fit" doctor she runs into one morning. Mack shows her an old scroll his father had found and with his permission she begins to carefully (thus slowly) unwind and read it, revealing an old murder. Whatever the merits of the story (and I found them few), I couldn't get past Sian's internal monologues or the dialogues between the two main characters, which seemed to me to be surprisingly stilted and unbelievable in both character and language choice. I never bought into the characters' speeches, motivations, or situations and thus the story simply dragged painfully on.
The final story is the shortest and also the best I thought. As with the other two, there is a sense of menace and the supernatural, but the story's tone is more fabulist than the others and so the effect seems to enhance the story rather than call notice to itself. The Fahrenheit Twins deals with the so-named twins and their journey to dispose of the body of their recently deceased mother, a journey made difficult by the fact that they live in an Arctic wasteland (their parents were/are anthropologists) and even more difficult by the fact that their father, unknownst to them, prefers they not return. There is a sparse beauty in the language throughout and a wonderful matter-of-fact tone. The story gets a little too cute perhaps at the very end, but it has little effect on the overall enjoyment.
The last story in fact is so good that it tips the balance toward recommending the book, despite the flaws of the others, though the recommendation has to remain a weak one. More enthusiastically, I recommend picking the book up and reading the last story first, then going back to the beginning with the feeling that you can put it down at any point knowing you've already read the best thing in it.

Rating:
Summary: Not up to Faber's standard
Review: There is no doubt that Faber is a great modern novelist. The Crimson Petal and the White is an amazing book, and Under the Skin is a great original tale. Faber writes original plots that take you to a place and time you've never been before. But with the Courage Consort, Faber offers us three short tales that, while usually entertaining, are not as fascinating as his novels.

The title story, The Courage Consort, is also the collection's weakest. A group of opera singers go to a mansion in the middle of the woods to practice their latest show in solitude. The story's heroine, Catherine, is a troubled and depressed woman who doesn't know what she wants out of life anymore. Or, for that matter, if she even has the will to live another day. Although the tale offers many touching moments, in the end, it ends up nowhere. This allegory of life and death isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

The Hundred and Ninety-nine Steps is a very good mystery about an archeologist's obssession with an old document that has just been recovered. She also uses this document as a pretense to let herself fall in love with a mysterious young doctor. Although the story is very entertaining, it is rather long-winded and, at times, repetitive. I wanted to know more about that mysterious document than about the characters.

The real reason to read this collection is for the last, and shortest story of the lot : The Farenheit Twins. When Tainto and Marko lose their mother, they leave on a trek into the wild winter woods to bury her body. But their father has really sent them on a suicide mission from which they are not supposed to return. This modern Hansel and Gretel tale is touching, moving and very effective. This is what a Faber story is all about.

I have to admit that I was disappointed by The Courage Consort. Yes, thewriting is beautiful, as always, and yes his characters are usually very interesting. But these qualities were not enough to save the collection. Although none of the stories are bad or not enjoyable, I've come to expect more and better from Faber. Please oh please give us another Crimson Petal or Under the Skin!

Rating:
Summary: Exquisite prose and completeness of vision
Review: While none of these three small gems is as dazzling as Faber's wonderful novel, "The Crimson Petal and the White," each is memorable for its completeness of vision and exquisite writing. Whether it's a rented villa in Belgium, an archaeological dig in England or a fairy tale expanse of arctic isolation, Faber draws the reader deep into his imagined world.

The most arresting novella is the last, and the briefest, "The Fahrenheit Twins." A dark, humorous, and ultimately creepy Hansel and Gretel tale, it centers on twins identical in all but gender. "There was even the same amount of light inside their eyes, a difficult thing to reproduce exactly."

Born on an arctic island, their births unrecorded, they are a secret from the wider world. Their parents, anthropologists studying an indigenous tribe, are often absent and when home are usually otherwise occupied. The children have never met any other human beings, but they have developed a satisfying private culture centered on rituals and magic.

Determined to remain identical and inseparable forever, their most important ceremony is one created to ward off the inevitability of adolescence, which their mother has warned them of. And their most important object is a "Book of Knowledge," in which they "pieced together an impression of who their mother might be," by recording the 100 sentences or so she addresses to them in the course of a year.

When their mother dies, the children address this cataclysm by pondering a suitably grave and momentous ritual. It will involve a quest in which much is discovered, absorbed and acted upon. Faber uses the difference between the protagonists' and the reader's knowledge to enchant, startle, and dismay.

The most involving novella is "The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps," which are the number of steps archaeologist Sian climbs each morning to the Whitby Abbey where she participates in the exhumation and cataloguing of an old abbey cemetery. Sian, her sleep nightly haunted by a murderer who slits her throat in her dreams, wakes each morning to unspoken fears over a painful lump in her hip.

Lonely and still recovering from a horrific Bosnian War experience, Sian's work is all consuming until the day she meets a handsome cynic and his delightful dog. The dog's open and unself-conscious affection captivates Sian immediately. Her attraction to the man is naturally more problematic, but his tantalizing possession of an old bundle of papers unites them in an effort to sate their curiosity. As Sian painstakingly deciphers the ancient, crumbly papers, a murder mystery begins to unfold, and exacerbates their differences. Magnus never comes as alive as Sian - he seems more of a sparring partner and a physical presence, at least until the end, but the story is full of surprises and insights.

In the title novella, "The Courage Consort," Faber induces to the reader to identify with his characters without necessarily warming to any of them. The story concerns an a cappella singing group gathered in a Belgian villa to rehearse a complex, ultra-modern new composition for a festival.

The narrative centers on Catherine Courage, the group's soprano and clinically depressed wife of the group's leader, Roger. Roger, always insists the consort's name comes from their willingness to take on new works rather than from his name. The other members of the rather dyspeptic group are the acutely obese bass, Ben, prickly Julian and young, forthright Dagmar, who arrives with her new baby.

Tensions percolate in the heat and isolation of the villa as the piece soon shows itself to be as uninspired as it is difficult. The villa itself is surrounded by woods, from which strange cries emanate at night, heard only by Catherine. The woods are by turns a refuge, a menace and a mystery, depending on the human mood. The novella is atmospheric and moody - its physical aspects contrasting and complementing the more elusive human characters.

Beautifully written and constructed, this story was the most quietly haunting, while the least compelling. Its petty, self-absorbed and not particularly likable characters manage nevertheless to stick in the mind long after the last page is turned.

Each of these pieces offers a colorful, intense and vivid experience, infused with humor, the unexpected and a moral center.